St. Thomas Postcard
St. Thomas Nevada May 2003
I received a call from a girlfriend living in Las Vegas and was told that the old town of St. Thomas was beginning to show due to the lower water level in Lake Mead. The construction of Hoover Dam and the filling of the reservoir caused the last resident of the town to finally leave on June 11, 1938.
After sixty three years under water the remains of the town were beginning to see sunshine . This was an opportunity not to be missed. I found the best way to approach the town was from the Lake Mead Marina to the south, hiking along the semi-rocky shoreline, but mostly through deep sticky mud. An arduous adventure indeed.
Numerous buildings and foundations were now above the waterline. Old tree trunks lined original roadways. There was nary a footprint to be seen. I had the entire town to myself and had arrived prior to the vandals and looters, taking only photographs and leaving only footprints of my own in the mud.
Over the course of the next several months after my departure even more buildings began to see the light of day.
I created the postcard to commemorate my time. The building that I chose had an unusual configuration. The tops of the windows were nearly at the same height as the top of the door openings. More than six decades of silt had accumulated up to the bottom of the window sills.
This photograph was taken lying in the mud, and the view is westward looking towards the Valley of Fire. These ruins are now protected by the National Park Service as a historic site.
